Page 46 of The Alpha's Warlock
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” I said, with all the enthusiasm of a man about to get a root canal. “I’m sure we’ll have so much fun grunting at each other like cavemen.”
That pulled a real laugh out of Ian, a stomach-shaking guffaw that drew an answering smile from me. If he could laugh like that, maybe he’d be all right, even dealing with Matthew. “No doubt. Don’t worry, he’ll go wherever you tell him to, including however many times you make him stop for coffee.” Fuck, Ian knew me a little too well. “And he’ll carry all the salt.”
I finally wiggled around in Ian’s hold far enough to kiss him, because that deserved a kiss. Which turned into several kisses, that lasted a lot longer than a simple goodbye needed to, and by the time I escaped, I was red-faced and swollen-lipped and a little weak in the knees.
Fine. Having to put up with a mandatory Neanderthal-esque werewolf escort to the grocery store maybe had its compensations.
***
“Oh, fuuuuck,” I gasped, my head tossing on the pillow and my nails scoring lines down Ian’s back. “Ian. Gods, don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Kisses were one compensation. Ian’s enormous cock buried to the hilt in my ass was another.
By the time I’d run all my errands, it was late afternoon, and I’d gone straight to the shack of solitude, meaning to have a civilized evening when Ian came home from running the pack ragged. Cook some real food, converse like witty gentlemen (yeah right, but I could dream), put away all the stuff I’d brought from my apartment and the stores I’d visited.
I’d gotten as far as putting the milk in the fridge when Ian stormed through the door and tackled me onto the bed, his tongue in my mouth and his half-extended claws ripping my t-shirt off like tissue paper.
The rest of our clothes had survived, I thought. Probably. At the moment, I couldn’t care less.
“I’m not going to fucking stop,” Ian panted. “Not now. Not ever.” He thrust harder, slamming my sweet spot with all his supernatural force, and I screamed and clenched my muscles around him and bit his shoulder.
Gods, the way his hips moved, like a piston, ramming his cock so far into me it felt like my lungs were bruised. He was all sweat-slick muscle and unstoppable strength, and I arched up into him and held him close, pinned down and helpless and never more powerful in my life.
Ian’s knot started to swell, rubbing deliciously against the most sensitive parts of me. Filling me up so perfectly. I shifted so that my cock brushed over his stomach, once, and then again, the friction just enough to tip me over the edge.
We came together, hot and wet, drenching me in come inside and out.
I collapsed, completely spent. Exhaustion already had its hooks in me before Ian came home, and now — yeah, now I was never moving again.
Lucky that Ian was happy to manhandle me, then. He rolled us so that I wasn’t crushed under his weight, arranging me so I was tucked between his legs, his knot still lodged inside me. One bicep served as a pillow, and he rested his forehead against my hair.
I really did usually get a boost from sex. Was it specific to Ian, this loose, pliant sleepiness after fucking? That sounded stupid at first, but — yeah, it was specific to Ian. Specific, more precisely, to being with someone I trusted. Someone who didn’t make me want to bounce out of bed and start speed-talking and getting cleaned up and making coffee and hinting that oh yeah, I really had somewhere to be.
My toes curled, digging into his calf, and I felt him smile against my hair. He stroked up and down my back. Ah, compensations. A whole day with Luke, even though he drove even more insanely than Ian did and had a single-digit vocabulary, was so worth this.
Ian’s chest rose sharply as he took a deep breath. “I never apologized.”
Yeah, what the fuck else was new with Mr. Self-Righteous Alpha, anyway. “Mmmm?”
“For thinking you were working with — him. When you were younger, and this time. I never knew what he was doing to you. I’m so, so sorry, Nate. I should’ve done something to help you. And I never should’ve thought that about you.”
“You couldn’t risk trusting me, or you would’ve been too vulnerable if I really was going to fuck you over,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
I’d figured that out while I was packing up some of my clothes earlier in the day and thinking it all over. Yeah, it had hurt, the way he held part of himself back, but it also made more sense than blindly trusting me would have. Knowing how he felt about me helped ease me over the forgiveness hump, anyway. Although hearing, straight-out, how he felt about me would’ve been nice. Maybe that was too much to expect from Ian. Maybe that was too much to expect when I hadn’t said one fucking word about how I felt about him, except to tell him I wasn’t going anywhere. Which could totally be interpreted as me making the best of it so that I had a pack and protection.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was theworst.
Could I say it first? I couldn’t say it first. Too scary. No way. I’d never said those words toanyone. Not even a cat or something.
Ian was a lot bigger than a cat. Furrier, too, when he wanted to be.
Oh, fuck, I was panicking, my heart rate picking up and all my drowsy contentment draining away.
“Nate? You’re right. That was why, not that it makes me less of a dick. Are you listening? Are you okay?”
I tipped my head back and looked up into Ian’s worried face. He was so handsome like this, all flushed and rumpled and damp with sweat, warm and big andmine.
Now or never. “I love you,” I blurted out, the words running together.
